Snowflakes and Sunbeams | Page 2

their shadows before

CHAPTER XXIX
The first day at home; a gallop in the prairie, and its consequences

CHAPTER XXX
Love; old Mr. Kennedy puts his foot in it

CHAPTER XXXI
The course of true love, curiously enough, runs smooth for once; and
the curtain falls

CHAPTER I.

Plunges the reader into the middle of an Arctic winter; conveys him
into the heart of the wildernesses of North America; and introduces him
to some of the principal personages of our tale.
Snowflakes and sunbeams, heat and cold, winter and summer,
alternated with their wonted regularity for fifteen years in the wild
regions of the Far North. During this space of time the hero of our tale
sprouted from babyhood to boyhood, passed through the usual amount
of accidents, ailments, and vicissitudes incidental to those periods of
life, and finally entered upon that ambiguous condition that precedes
early manhood.
It was a clear, cold winter's day. The sunbeams of summer were long
past, and snowflakes had fallen thickly on the banks of Red River.
Charley sat on a lump of blue ice, his head drooping and his eyes bent
on the snow at his feet with an expression of deep disconsolation.
Kate reclined at Charley's side, looking wistfully up in his expressive
face, as if to read the thoughts that were chasing each other through his
mind, like the ever-varying clouds that floated in the winter sky above.
It was quite evident to the most careless observer that, whatever might
be the usual temperaments of the boy and girl, their present state of
mind was not joyous, but on the contrary, very sad.
"It won't do, sister Kate," said Charley. "I've tried him over and over
again--I've implored, begged, and entreated him to let me go; but he
won't, and I'm determined to run away, so there's an end of it!"
As Charley gave utterance to this unalterable resolution, he rose from
the bit of blue ice, and taking Kate by the hand, led her over the frozen
river, climbed up the bank on the opposite side--an operation of some
difficulty, owing to the snow, which had been drifted so deeply during
a late storm that the usual track was almost obliterated--and turning
into a path that lost itself among the willows, they speedily
disappeared.
As it is possible our reader may desire to know who Charley and Kate
are, and the part of the world in which they dwell, we will interrupt the

thread of our narrative to explain.
In the very centre of the great continent of North America, far removed
from the abodes of civilised men, and about twenty miles to the south
of Lake Winnipeg, exists a colony composed of Indians, Scotsmen, and
French-Canadians, which is known by the name of Red River
Settlement. Red River differs from most colonies in more respects than
one--the chief differences being, that whereas other colonies cluster on
the sea-coast, this one lies many hundreds of miles in the interior of the
country, and is surrounded by a wilderness; and while other colonies,
acting on the Golden Rule, export their produce in return for goods
imported, this of Red River imports a large quantity, and exports
nothing, or next to nothing. Not but that it might export, if it only had
an outlet or a market; but being eight hundred miles removed from the
sea, and five hundred miles from the nearest market, with a series of
rivers, lakes, rapids, and cataracts separating from the one, and a wide
sweep of treeless prairie dividing from the other, the settlers have long
since come to the conclusion that they were born to consume their own
produce, and so regulate the extent of their farming operations by the
strength of their appetites. Of course, there are many of the necessaries,
or at least the luxuries, of life which the colonists cannot grow--such as
tea, coffee, sugar, coats, trousers, and shirts-- and which, consequently,
they procure from England, by means of the Hudson's Bay Fur
Company's ships, which sail once a year from Gravesend, laden with
supplies for the trade carried on with the Indians. And the bales
containing these articles are conveyed in boats up the rivers, carried
past the waterfalls and rapids overland on the shoulders of stalwart
voyageurs, and finally landed at Red River, after a rough trip of many
weeks' duration. The colony was founded in 1811, by the Earl of
Selkirk, previously to which it had been a trading-post of the Fur
Company. At the time of which we write, it contained about five
thousand souls, and extended upwards of fifty miles along the Red and
Assiniboine rivers, which streams supplied the settlers with a variety of
excellent fish. The banks were clothed with fine trees; and